ISLAMABAD, March 23: Federal Minister for Water and Power Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao has told the National Assembly that a total of 3,926 persons are presently working on daily wages basis in Wapda.
In a written reply to a question of PPP MNA Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi, the minister said these persons were working at different formations of Wapda. According to the statistics provided by the minister, about 1,515 persons are working on daily wages basis in the office of the chief engineer (canal and maintenance), water, followed by 568 in Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) and 517 in the office of the general manager (thermal).
The number of persons working on daily wages in other formations are: chief executive officer, NTDC (204), general manager, hydel (172), Islamabad Electric Supply Company (156), Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (153), general manager administration (149), Gujranwala Electric Power Company (121), Peshawar Electric Supply Company (119), Lahore Electric Supply Company (113), Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (92) and Quetta Electric Supply Company (47).
Replying to a question of Riaz Fatiana, the minister told the house that 49 sub-divisional officers (SDOs) of distribution companies had been removed, dismissed and compulsorily retired under the Removal from Service (Special Power) Ordinance 2000. Out of the 49 SDOs removed from service, as many as 20 belonged to Iesco.
In response to a question of Shabbir Ahmed Khan, Mr Sherpao said 23,597 people were employed in Wapda during the last three years. He said only three people were recruited on open merit while others were recruited on quota basis. He said Wapda recruited 16,254 persons in Punjab, 4,266 in the NWFP, 1,531 in Sindh, 1,101 in Balochistan, 218 in Fata, 152 in Islamabad and 72 in Azad Kashmir.
Answering a question by Gul-i-Farkhanda, Mr Sherpao told the lower house that at present 14,578 vacancies were lying vacant in grade 1 to 16. The total number of employees in grade 1 to 16 working in Wapda on contract basis were 31,128.
He further said the services of 6,157 employees had been regularized during last one year on completion of three years 'satisfactory service'. He said the remaining 24,926 employees would also be considered for regularization after completion of the three-year period.
